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With Spamton, everything is transactional. This is something you learned the first time you met, and haven’t been able to forget. He couldn’t let you forget it, each time you visited he was amidant something was to be exchanged, even if all you did was leave with an empty glass bottle he gave you in exchange for your time.
Or… you bought it. Not with money, not even if you offered to, just bartered with your attention.
There was something ritualistic about it, always with a sales pitch and a heavy dose of advertisement-speak. Very endearing, too, though it took a while to get used to. And at first you did have your hesitations about bringing home what was essentially trash.
(Granted, it was a very pretty bottle. Something antique with a corked lid, the surface had gotten opaque with age and wear but still shimmered with opalescence if it caught the right light. You kept it on a shelf along with several other trinkets you’d purchased. )
It became a kind of a game to him, unbeknownst to you, to come up with his next pitch. To find his next street-found commodity to sell, a routine that formed quickly and gave him something to do. He relished it, his code singing praises to an addison with a single returning customer.
That was enough.
He didn’t expect it to get him in this much trouble, though. He expected you to stop humoring him, for the visits to stop one day. He’s thought of a myriad of ways this little deal could turn sour, besides this one. Cross his heart, he didn’t know the thing was stolen. It was lying in the street, all scuffed and dirty, looking like something very unwanted– tossed out. He didn’t have second thoughts about picking it up.
He should’ve known when he felt how heavy it laid in his palm as he brushed away the dirt, revealing a perfectly shiny surface. If he was in it for the money he could sell this, this wasn’t some piece of trash. Maybe it was your size.
He held it up to the light of a streetlamp, judged the width between curves of metal with his own ball-jointed digit.
To the two darkners rounded that street corner, it must have been a damning sight. Otherwise they wouldn’t have roughed him up this bad.
He isn’t there when you round that same street corner, like he usually is. You expected to see an unnerving little pair of lenses that cast light back to meet you, your shoulders falling in a mix of confusion and disappointment when you find the space seemingly uninhabited. Did he forget?
You look at your watch and, no, it is the right time. Late in the evening, when the streets aren’t as busy now that rush hour is over and the sound of traffic is far and muted. You just got off work.
“Spamton?” You call out softly, knowing your voice will echo enough to reach the only object in the alley besides the ragged posters on the walls.
A dull clank rings out in reply, like a fist hitting rusted metal, and it pulls you further down the brick-lined hall.
He does look forward to these little meetings, more than he would ever let on, but now seeing you is the last thing he wants. He can lick his wounds in peace, alone, just fine . It’s something he’s well versed in. He can’t control the knee-jerk response, muffled curses flowing under his breath when he hears footsteps come closer.
He has a hand brought up to his face when you do find him, laying with his back against the wall, wearing a haunted expression that sticks with you long after his wounds are healed. Eyes like a cornered animal, fixed cold and frightened as he holds your gaze like he doesn’t recognize you.
He hates how your face contorts with shock, then something a lot like pity replaces it. He grew up being looked at like that, a failure of an addison, he doesn’t need it anymore. Especially not from you.
“YOU [caught me at a bad time].” The words come out more garbled than usual, something inside him struggling more than it usually does to produce the sounds. He feels his internal processors voice their protest with an ache not unlike a sore throat, and revels in the sensation for a moment. How wonderfully organic . He does not remember anything he said during the fight, but if it was anything like his sales pitches–
“DUE TO [unforeseen consequences] WE WILL [closed for renovations!]”
He gestures, shooing you away, and the movement reveals the cracked left lens of his glasses. And behind it a mirrored image, his face is marred with a fracture down the side of his cheek. He cannot remember why he had his hand up in the first place until your own fingers land on his chin and tilt his face for a better view.
You bat Spamton’s hand away when he tries to conceal the injury a second time.
He blinks sluggishly up at you while you, fully absorbed by the adrenaline and righteous fury brought upon by seeing your friend in this state, ball your fists and look around for the perpetrators. This had to have happened within the last hour, they could still be around–
The anger on your face makes him crack a smile, now that’s a good look on you.
When he leans into the touch, the gesture shocks you out of your quest for retribution if only for a moment. Your palm is warm.
You close your mouth in stunned silence before you can ask him: who did this? And really, it’s best you don’t know. He won’t tell you even after he’s recovered, because he can fight his own battles and the last thing he would ever want to see is you hurt. Because of him.
That’s the moment you know he’s really out of it. He’s never let you touch him like this. Never seemed particularly fond or inviting of affection beyond a simple handshake. His surface feels unnervingly cool and sticky with… something dark as he lets you discover the scope of his wounds. Moving him like a mannequin for a better view. He doesn’t protest.
You can only see the injuries not covered by torn clothing, and the rest is left to your imagination. One of his fingers is bent at a grotesque angle, the ball-joint out of place. You can fix that. (You only know the very basics of first aid. Which you are fairly sure wont work on a puppet. ) You could patch up his clothes when you got home. (You’ve never even owned a needle and thread.) He could borrow some of your smaller garments that didn’t fit you anymore in the meantime.
He would be okay. You can fix this. But he can’t stay here.
“Can you stand?”
His eyes open, you don’t remember seeing him close them, and he frowns like he’s just realized you want to help him. Of course he can stand. This isn’t his first fight, and he doesn’t need your pity.
He leans away almost childishly.
“Please, Spamton, Let me help you.”
He accepted help once, from a rotary phone that promised salvation with no strings attached.
You were not scamming him though, he concedes in a moment of weakness, rising to his feet, still unable to shake those last slivers of trust that ruined his life. You help him up, wincing at how unsteady the movement is. His head throbs.
You’ve never seen him look so… inanimate, his glasses dim and extinguished. He’s never been quiet this long either, which is somehow more worrying.
He swipes at the sticky crust of dried ballast and coolant on his face. The uncomfortable, scratchy sensation is the last thing he remembers before it is replaced by the softness of a warm, damp cloth.
One moment he’s in his alley, and the next he’s engulfed with the feeling of you cleaning him like a prized possession, brows knitted in worried concentration as you begin the work of mending him– in your home. On your couch.
He’s mortified by the implications of his lapse in consciousness. And you swear his cheeks get redder somehow when you lean back and take note of his lucidity, scanning his face. He looks a little more coherent, now, and you finally release the tension in your shoulders.
“DID YOUu–” His voice skips. He clears his throat. “–[[we carry an array of appliances]]...?”
“ No. ” You lie, the corner of your mouth twitching, amused at the fact that is what he’s worried about right now. His ego is bruised enough. “We walked here.”
He was a lot heavier than he looked.
You busy yourself with applying a generous amount of salve to his forearm, before wrapping gauze around the area. You’d gotten him mostly clean so far here, scrubbed away the scuffs and dried… blood? Whatever that oily, crystalline substance was. Until you could properly dress his injuries.
Of course, all of this is what you would do if you were hurt. You don’t know if this will work for him, his peculiar anatomy, but he doesn’t object and you take that as a good sign. It will at least stop him from bleeding anymore. Hold him together.
You position yourself cross-legged beside him, hand on his shoulder to guide him into doing the same until you can bend forward, accounting for the height difference between you, and start on that horrible fracture running down the side of his head. Here, he feels like porcelain.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”
For a long moment, he’s sure he’s dead. The couch is wonderfully soft beneath him, a lot better than asphalt, and your warm hands are back on him to begin the same rhythmic clean-wrap-repeat. There’s a candle burning somewhere, the scent sweet like myrrh. This is Heaven, he thinks, more than a little deliriously.
And when you feel him shiver beneath your fingertips you glance up, worried you hurt him, only to find him with his eyes closed and… peaceful.
You absentmindedly make some attempt to put his hair back into place, combing a lock back with your fingers, with the excuse of trying to get a better view. It could use some gel, but that’s the last thing to be worrying about.
Now that he doesn’t look like he’s about to die, your mind wanders and it settles in that you’ve let him into your home and are very, very close to him now. You don’t have visitors often and you can’t imagine he leaves his post very often either. The adware-salesman looks entirely out of place, no longer an apparition in the streets– something bordering on the non-corporeal.
“We’re friends, right?”
You don’t know why you ask it, especially now, but it blurts out just the same, barely audible under your breath. You do not even expect an answer.
The words cause a jump in his guts, dashing the moment of peace, his insides grimacing but his face remaining unreadable. He’s heard them crackle through the speaker of an old rotary phone, through the voice of a stranger, another red flag ignored. He’s said them himself once, long after the answer was already glaringly apparent. No, Spamton, not anymore.
His eyes fizz with static for a brief second, your hand so close you can feel the sparks.
The gravity of your work sets in, there as you watch him blink away whatever overcame him. It’s never been just his physical wounds.
But like a fever-break, he fixes his gaze to a shelf behind you and takes in the scenery with a deep, shuddering breath. He recognizes the objects up there, surrounded by stacks of books on either side. There’s that bottle you gave him yesterday.
Looking at the little altar of trinkets on the shelf feels like getting thwacked over the head again. He’s not quite sure what he expected you did with the things you bought, but keeping them, everything , was so far out of the realm of possibility he wouldn’t believe it if it wasn’t staring him in the face.
He steals a glance at you, watching how the tip of your tongue peeks out from your lips as you concentrate on removing one last stubborn scuff mark. He’s never particularly liked feeling like a puppet, not when this fate was forced upon him. But being your doll is nice.
The answer comes easy, then.
“Yeah.”
You hum in confusion, you don’t even remember asking the question at first, too deep in your work. But the uncharacteristic softness of his voice is enough to regain your full attention.
He continues, enunciating like you’ve won a prize. “YOU’VE GOT SPAMTON G SPAMTON [ride or die!] YOUR OWN PERSONAL [4.99 slime].” He brings up a hand to scratch the back of his neck, feeling the edge of a newly-placed bandage.
“Don’t you forget it.”
You smile for the first time that night, quieting the part of you that worried you were overstepping. It wasn’t always easy to discern the meaning beneath his words, if he really meant them or if they were part of his scripted salesman act. But something told you this was real. And maybe you’ve been missing his funny little speech quirks. You’re taking them as a sign he feels better.
“Well, since we’re friends, would you do me a favor?”
He is quick to answer, nodding.
“Would you tell me if I’m doing this right?” You manage a small laugh tinged with mounting frustration as a bandage comes loose. “If you haven’t realized it yet, I don’t exactly know what I’m doing.”
“[heaven] IF I KNOW.” He shrugs and looks down at his lap, flexing his fingers in an attempt to get his joints back into place. “USUALLY I JUST [Wing It®]. THEY DON’T EXACTLY HAVE [[Emergency Medical Care]] FOR [Long-Nosed Dolls].”
The image of him being injured and just accepting his fate is deeply worrying. But at the same time, it does make you a little less concerned for his well being in your care, knowing that he’s handled this before in worse conditions.
“So you can heal? I don’t have to like… glue you together, do I?”
“NOT THIS [[Workout Ready Body]]! MY [specs] THOUGH? MAYBE .” He gives a chittering, bitcrushed laugh and reaches for his glasses, only to find them missing after pawing at the area they should be. “SPEAKING OF, WHERE–”
You pull them down off the crown of his head and return them to their rightful place at the bridge of his nose.
“ OH. ”
They’re still broken of course, but he visibly relaxes once they’re concealing his eyes once more– however inadequately. He runs a finger over the fracture in the lens and in his periphery he notices how close you still are, disappointed to find your hands now folded in your lap. He mourns that last touch, writes the feeling of your fingers through his hair to memory.
He isn’t quite ready for this to end.
He looks down at himself, fine roves of bandaging on his arm, the extent of which he only now fully realizes (maybe he was a little farsighted, not that he would ever tell anyone). A physical manifestation that someone gives a shit about him, that you care.
That bottle on the shelf catches a fleck of neon city light shining in through the window, and casts it back with that motor-oil-on-water opalescence that caught his eye all those weeks ago. And Spamton wipes at eyes he knows are dry but feels otherwise, a puppet that can bleed but not cry.
Before he can tell you just how much he appreciates all this, despite all his stubbornness, you rise and interrupt his thoughts. He sees that unfortunately-familiar look, that tense and faraway expression. Of retribution.
The pain of his injuries has ebbed, but you have only gotten more upset by the hour– by the fact that he has to put up with this, after being cast out by nearly everyone in this city, after being forgotten , he couldn’t at least be granted peace?
“[On A Scale Of One To Ten] HOW [0pen] ARE YOU TO A [Don’t Miss This Once In A Lifetime Offer!!!]?” He interrupts your thoughts, chirping out that familiar patchwork of voices that aren’t quite his.
You nearly roll your eyes, instead opting to cross your arms and give him a quirked brow. Of all the times to make a sales pitch…
Ah, but he knew that look. This was a customer that was hooked. There’s that warm feeling he’ll chase again and again as long as you’ll let him.
He ignores the stinging when he moves to stand, ignores your protest when you tell him to please sit back down– I don’t need you to put on a show. Opting to chatter on about sterling-silver antiques.
But you’re both grinning all the while, and to an onlooker, you must look just as mad as him.
“FOR THE LOW, LOW PRICE OF [90% OFF!] [for participating guests only] THIS [Incriminating Evidence] STRAIGHT FROM [undisclosed location] CAN BE YOURS!” He motions, then fumbles to get something from his pocket. He’s still wobbly on his feet, still just a bit uncoordinated with his hands.
“Alright, alright, I’m sold.” You put a hand on his shoulder, nudging him back to sitting. “Sit, before you hurt yourself.”
He takes that same hand and forms it into a cup, little porcelain digits methodically shaping your own, and places that heavy, well-won trinket into the center of your palm.